August 30, 2010

Phillips no longer angry, takes softer approach and says Cowboys will be fine

After the 23-7 loss to the Texans, an angry Wade Phillips said his team was not ready for prime time and they have more work to do before the Sept. 12 season opener against the Redskins.

Two days later, Phillips is taking a softer, more cupcake like approach.

He blames the Cowboys poor play overall in the preseason on their philosophy to be vanilla and not game plan while other teams are choosing to be more aggressive.

"Different teams approach preseason different ways," Phillips said. "We’re pretty vanilla in the preseason. That’s the way we’ve been. We made some mistakes on just our base stuff and that bothered me certainly. But what other teams do you can’t look at because we see every week what we think are good offensive teams or good defensive teams from the previous years not do well. That’s a lot because of their approach. We’ve seen it with the Colts for a good while now. We know that we’re carrying a short stick when we go in the game and we don’t do some of the things we’re going to do in the regular season offensively and defensively and even on special teams. But that’s the way we approach it, so that’s our approach."

Phillips said the Cowboys believe in their approach and he is not going to overreact now, which is why they are reconsidering their decision to play their starters in preseason final against the Dolphins Thursday night.

"That’s to be determined, and that’s what I’m thinking about," Phillips said. " I’m thinking about that and what our philosophy has been and probably will continue to be."

He also said the Cowboys were tired from a long training camp, albeit a productive one, according to him. Phillips said the Cowbosys weren't ready against the Texans but he is confident they will fine and ready to go against the Redskins Sept. 12.

"We weren’t ready in that game to play a regular-season game, I didn’t think," Phillips said. "We didn’t play like we were ready for the regular season, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be ready in two weeks. I think we practiced well. I do think we were tired. I’m not making excuses for this team, because I think they’re going to be fine. We’re going to be fine. We’re going to have a good football team. We’ve got a lot ahead of us."